Systems are available for protecting an object, such as a vehicle, or a group of objects, such as a convoy of vehicles, from a projectile fired at the object or group of objects. Examples of the projectile include a shell and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG).
FIG. 1 is a plan view of a convoy 10 of vehicles 121-12n, such as tanks, and two RPG launchers 14a and 14b for firing RPGs (not shown in FIG. 1) at the vehicles.
Each vehicle 121-12n includes a respective protection system 161-16n, which protects the vehicle (and perhaps nearby vehicles) from damage caused by fired RPGs, and which protects the passengers of the vehicle (and perhaps the passengers of nearby vehicles) from injuries caused by the fired RPGs. For example, one or more of the systems 161-16n may launch countermeasures (not shown in FIG. 1) or other enable defenses in response to the launcher 14a firing an RPG at the convoy 10. Such countermeasures/defenses may damage or destroy the fired RPG. Or, where the launcher 14a fires a projectile that can change its direction after firing (e.g., a guided missile), such countermeasures/defenses may cause the projectile to veer away from the convoy 10.
Unfortunately, each protection system 161-16n may be relatively expensive to acquire and install. For example, a protection system 16 that incorporates radar may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to acquire and install on a vehicle such as a tank.
Furthermore, the protection systems 16 may be relatively inefficient and expensive to operate. For example, if the system 161 in the convoy 10 detects the firing of an RPG (not shown in FIG. 1) from the launcher 14a, the system 161 may launch countermeasures, and may also cause the other systems 162-16n in the convoy to launch countermeasures, even though countermeasures launched by fewer than all of the systems 16 are sufficient to disable or destroy the fired RPG. The loss of the unnecessarily launched countermeasures may reduce the convoy's mission time and may compromise the systems' ability to defend the convoy 10 against subsequent attacks. Furthermore, the time and the cost of replacing the unnecessarily launched countermeasures may be significant.